Injury reporting could be stressful for Northeast Ohio businesses

OSHA proposal is drawing ire of some local companies

A proposal by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to make injury reports more accessible to the agency and, eventually, the public, is drawing concerns that people could misconstrue the data, the privacy of injured employees could be at risk, and OSHA personnel could use the information to trigger inspections.

The government late in 2013 proposed a rule that would require companies with at least 250 employees to submit information from all their injury and illness records electronically, and on a quarterly basis, to OSHA. The proposal would expand the scope of present reporting requirements because records of reportable injuries — anything that requires more than basic first aid, from a cut to contact dermatitis to a broken bone — are kept by the employer but are not submitted regularly to OSHA.

Reports of fatalities and incidents that lead to hospitalizations must be submitted to OSHA within eight hours.

Under the proposal, companies with 20 or more employees in specific industries, including manufacturing and construction, would be required to submit a summary of all illness and injury records annually.

OSHA has said in public documents that the changes would allow for increased identification and elimination of workplace hazards. But not everyone who deals with the agency buys that rationale.

Mike Hanna, a partner at the Squire Sanders law firm in Cleveland who has been following health and safety issues throughout his 33-year career, said the information in the injury reports “doesn't tell the full story.” The reports, viewed in isolation, could present a misleading picture of the relative safety of a company's work environment, according to Mr. Hanna. The information also could be used against a company by a competitor, he said.

Mr. Hanna and Vincent Norwillo, a labor relations attorney and partner at Gonzalez Saggio & Harlan in Cleveland, also say the bulked-up reporting of minor incidents could trigger more site visits by government inspectors.

“Once OSHA's on site, everything's fair game,” Mr. Norwillo said.

Mr. Norwillo also raised concerns about the proposal's implications for employee privacy, noting that people familiar with certain situations could piece information together even if specific details are redacted.

Employers are in favor of OSHA working to improve safety, he said, but they don't see how this proposal would help.

What price safety?

Mike Porter, director of global environmental health and safety for Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., said in an email that the tire maker “supports OSHA's goal of increasing workplace safety through its development of an electronic record-keeping system.” But Mr. Porter said Goodyear also is concerned about possible “misuse and interpretation of the data” and the potential for worker confidentiality to be compromised.

Manufacturing groups that include the National Association of Manufacturing and Brecksville-based Precision Machined Products Association express similar worries.

Miles Free, director of industry research and technology at the Precision Machined Products Association, said he doesn't think the proposal would improve worker safety, and he fears the data submitted wouldn't reflect a company's overall safety culture. He also raised concerns about the amount of time it could take for small businesses to implement the new system.

Mr. Free traveled to Washington, D.C., earlier this month to take part in a public meeting on the proposal. OSHA is seeking comments on the electronic recordkeeping proposal through March 8. An implementation date, if the proposal gets that far, has not been set.

Still, not all business people are sounding an alarm about the potential change.

Jay Finegan, compliance services leader at Dakota Software in Cleveland, said there are some legitimate concerns about OSHA's electronic recordkeeping proposal, but none that are insurmountable. Dakota Software offers tools to companies to help them track and comply with environmental and health and safety regulations, like those from OSHA.

Mr. Finegan sees the debate as a repeat of the Environmental Protection Agency's toxic release inventory in the 1980s. The agency required big polluters to submit data about their emissions on a regular basis. When the information was made public, people started identifying the companies that were polluting, and the companies, in turn, started looking for ways to reduce their emissions and get off the list.

“That's actually a good thing,” Mr. Finegan said.

Mitigating risk

Peter Anselmi, environmental health and safety manager for American Spring Wire Corp. in Bedford Heights, said he doesn't think the proposal would make a big difference in the short term, though the threat of bad press and negative attention from the public “has the potential to make a big difference” in the long term.

Mr. Anselmi is in favor of the transparency, and he thinks people have the right to know about a company before they decide to work for it. American Spring Wire only has about 230 employees and would fall under the annual reporting requirements, if the proposal is passed as is.

Parma-based GrafTech International, a maker of graphite electrodes, already tracks its employees' injuries and near-injuries electronically, said Tom Jacques, vice president of health, safety and environmental protection and security. He said GrafTech's safety experts see the proposal as a possible improvement, assuming the system isn't cumbersome to use. The company has close to 1,300 employees in the United States.

Mr. Jacques said the proposal could help OSHA better collect data and improve its analysis of trends, much like GrafTech does already. GrafTech can analyze the data by site and identify areas that need more attention.

For instance, if the company is looking into back injuries, it can see where they're happening and whether that work area can be improved. Mr. Jacques said GrafTech is looking for “risks that you can eliminate.”

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